Reporting for refugees in Germany

For the German media refugees are not only a big story. There are more than a million of them, so they are a new market.

There are over a million refugees residing in Germany, and for many news outlets, the refugees are not only a big news story, they are a new market.

It has this paradigm or even ideology of assimilation towards refugees, so 'please do this, don't do this,' it's very much focusing on how you are backward and how we are kind of civilised and please become like us.

Carola Richter, Media Professor, Free University Berlin

Many organisations including public broadcasters, privately-run channels and widely-read newspapers have created content aimed at this new audience - in Arabic.

But not all the efforts have hit the mark, which has inspired a small group of refugees to start reporting for themselves. They are publishing a monthly newspaper that aims to get past the stereotypes and the cultural divide.

The Listening Post's Flo Phillips travelled to Berlin and Cologne to take a closer look at how the refugee story is being reported by outlets tailoring content for the new arrivals, as well as the new arrivals themselves.